2025 Finalists
Congratulations to the finalists of the Fifth Annual Bravo Awards!
If you want to see all puzzles and hunts that were nominated at least once, check out this sheet. You may vote on finalists here.
Hunts
| A | Large Hunt of the Year | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brown Puzzlehunt 2025 – Brown Puzzle Cinemas | Brown Puzzle Club |
| 2 | Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 – Terraforming | ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ |
| 3 | LN Hunt – Puzzlehunting in Another World With My Absurd Skills | PonX and friends |
| 4 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 – The Case of the Shadow Diamond | Death and Mayhem |
| 5 | Silph Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Silph |
| 6 | Teammate Hunt 2025 – Matt and Emma’s Deep-Space Disaster | teammate |
| B | Small Hunt of the Year | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Advent Hunt 2025 – Penguin Pandemonium! | Peppermint Herrings 🎏 |
| 2 | Brown Puzzlethon 2025 – Blusteau’s | Brown Puzzle Club |
| 3 | CMU Hunt Fall 2025 – Worm Hunt | Puzzle Hunt CMU |
| 4 | MIT Mystery Hatch | The Providence Invest-egg-ations |
| 5 | Penchant Puzzlehunt | Penchant Ltd. |
| 6 | Vertex Hunt | Christian |
| C | Best Production / Direction | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Advent Hunt 2025 – Penguin Pandemonium! | Peppermint Herrings 🎏 |
| 2 | Brown Puzzlehunt 2025 – Brown Puzzle Cinemas | Brown Puzzle Club |
| 3 | Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 – Terraforming | ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ |
| 4 | MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 – The Case of the Shadow Diamond | Death and Mayhem |
| 5 | Silph Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Silph |
| 6 | Teammate Hunt 2025 – Matt and Emma’s Deep-Space Disaster | teammate |
| D | Round of the Year | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🔍 (Secret Round) – Advent Hunt 2025 | Peppermint Herrings 🎏 |
| 2 | (A)isle of Crosswords – Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 | ✈✈✈ Galactic Trendsetters ✈✈✈ |
| 3 | Captain’s Office – Teammate Hunt 2025 | teammate |
| 4 | Horror – Brown Puzzlehunt 2025 | Brown Puzzle Club |
| 5 | Navigation – Teammate Hunt 2025 | teammate |
| 6 | The Frozen Tundra – Silph Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Silph |
| 7 | The Illegal Search – MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 | Death and Mayhem |
| 8 | The Paper Trail – MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 | Death and Mayhem |
Puzzles
| E | Best Metapuzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alias – MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 | Grant Elliott |
| 2 | Analogies & Connections – Edric’s 2025 Truzzle Hunt | Edric Haleen |
| 3 | Beachfront Property – Advent Hunt 2025 | Eshan Mitra and Zach Zagorski |
| 4 | Penchant Meta Sequence – Penchant Puzzlehunt | Thomas Gordon, noneuclidean |
| 5 | Plot a Course – Teammate Hunt 2025 | Jacqui Fashimpaur, Justin Yokota, Lumia Neyo, and Olga Vinogradova |
| 6 | Side Quest – Advent Hunt 2025 | Alex Walker (with help from Sara Walker and Zach Barnett) |
| 7 | Solve a Puzzlehunt – Vertex Hunt | Christian |
| 8 | The Shell Game – MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 | David Greenspan, James Douberley, Li-Mei Lim, and Leland Aldridge |
| 9 | The Web – Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Wayne Zhao, CJ Quines, and Charles Tam |
| F | Best Word Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Cryptic Has Arrived! – Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Dai Yang |
| 2 | Answering Machine v9 – Silph Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Level 51 |
| 3 | Double Crossed - Advent Hunt 2025 | Initial Concept: Eshan Mitra; Construction: Alex Walker, Sara Walker |
| 4 | Fix Word Processor – Microsoft Puzzlehunt | AUTHORS TO BE ADDED SOON |
| 5 | The Arcade – Advent Hunt 2025 | Chris Yu, Eshan Mitra, Jay Qi, Zach Zagorski |
| 6 | Turtles All The Way Down – Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Chris Jones |
| G | Best Logic Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gas, Water, and Electricity – Penchant Puzzlehunt | Thomas Gordon |
| 2 | Grid Logic – Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Yannick Yao |
| 3 | Ice Pack – Advent Hunt 2025 | Alex Walker, Eshan Mitra, Chris Yu |
| 4 | LITS – Silph Puzzle Hunt 2025 | lovemathboy |
| 5 | Subnivean Snake – Advent Hunt 2025 | Zach Barnett |
| 6 | Tetretronogronograri – Teammate Hunt 2025 | Evan Chen and Olga Vinogradova |
| H | Best Interactive Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Control Room – MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 | Robert “Fro” Myers, Arcturus Wang, Brie Frame, Hubert Hwang, and Kevin Hwang |
| 2 | I Wanna Baba Is You – LN Hunt | lightbulbMEOW, sWIfT |
| 3 | One Guard, Two Doors, and a Screen – Brown Puzzlehunt | Nate Chinman, Nicholas Cressman, Jack de Haan, Thomas Gordon |
| 4 | Ouroboros – Silph Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Level 51 |
| 5 | Shiny Red Button – LN Hunt | lightbulbMEOW |
| 6 | The Final Heist – Brown Puzzlehunt | Malcolm Certain and Thomas Gordon |
| 7 | The Reactor – Teammate Hunt 2025 | Ariel Uy, Ivan Wang, and Jacqui Fashimpaur |
| I | Best Symbolic Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alien Math – LN Hunt | kt3, lightbulbMEOW |
| 2 | ASCIIology – MIT Mystery Hatch | Paul Davey, Alex Walker |
| 3 | Puzzle Factory – LN Hunt | lightbulbMEOW, kt3 |
| 4 | Symbolic Computation – Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Brian Chen |
| J | Most Innovative Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Control Room – MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 | Robert “Fro” Myers, Arcturus Wang, Brie Frame, Hubert Hwang, and Kevin Hwang |
| 2 | Exotic Fen – MITMH 2024 Epilogue | Linus Hamilton |
| 3 | Plagiarism – Brown Puzzlehunt 2025 / A Local Knowledge Puzzle – CMU Puzzle Hunt Spring 2025 | Thomas Gordon and Ryan Judge |
| 4 | Ripple Effect – MITMH 2024 Epilogue | Paul Melamud, Jeremiahs Johnson |
| 5 | Songs on the Radio – MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 | Eric Marion, Arcturus Wang, and Evan Broder |
| K | Best Puzzle in a Non-English Language | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 古诗窃贼 – Golden Puzzle Hunt | skyline, selenium |
| 2 | 浮想联翩 - CCBC 16 | 温(welkin) |
| 3 | 你说话带括号 – CCBC 16 | 落葉子(Leaving Leaves) |
| 4 | 三字谜 – CCBC 16 | 落葉子 (Leaving Leaves) |
| 5 | Lost in Translation – LN Hunt | Rio Futaba |
| L | Best Introductory Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ladders – Penchant Puzzlehunt | noneuclidean |
| 2 | Motion Capture – Silph Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Level 51 and lydian |
| 3 | Paint By Letters – MIT Mystery Hatch | Eshan Mitra, Zach Barnett |
| 4 | Rereading – Penchant Puzzlehunt | noneuclidean |
| 5 | Spacewalk Round – Teammate Puzzlehunt | Ivan Wang, Katie Dunn, Patrick Xia, and Tracey Lin |
| 6 | Two Guards, Two Doors, a Boat, a River, and a Cabbage – Brown Puzzlehunt | Nate Chinman, Nicholas Cressman, Thomas Gordon, and Jack de Haan |
| M | Best Non-Categorized Puzzle | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Behold, A Puzzle – Teammate Hunt 2025 | Evan Chen, Kaity Du, and Sebastian Cordova |
| 2 | Plaintext Adventure – Silph Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Level 51 and lydian |
| 3 | Tidying Up – Advent Hunt 2025 | Eshan Mitra, Jay Qi, and Alex Walker |
| 4 | True Colors – Galactic Puzzle Hunt 2025 | Alec Brickner |
| 5 | Unlocking the Comms Device – Teammate Hunt | Abhijit Mudigonda, Ariel Uy, Austin Lei, and Catherine Wu |
| 6 | World’s Largest Crossword Puzzle – MIT Mystery Hunt 2025 | David Greenspan |
Other
| N | Best Non-Puzzle Contribution to the Community | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arguing About Puzzles – A podcast about puzzlehunts | Zach Barnett and Thomas Gordon |
| 2 | bph-site – A tech stack for deploying puzzlehunt apps | Brown Puzzle Club |
| 3 | FLEB – A puzzle creator and YouTuber | FLEB |
| 4 | MITMH 2025 Post-Solving Experience – Extensive puzzle updates and documentation | Death and Mayhem |
| 5 | https://puzzlendar.com/ – A calendar for both English and Chinese puzzlehunts | Brightly_ and hytallenxu_ |
| 6 | Puzzlehunt Countdowns – A YouTube series about puzzlehunts | RockmanEX3 |